Cedar Crest program matches state-school tuition for qualified students

Cedar Crest College has launched a new program that offers academically qualified students the same tuition rate as the flagship public institutions in their home states.

Blaney Hall, Cedar Crest College-submitted

The program at the women’s college, located in Allentown, is called STAR, for State Tuition Access Rate. It is open to first-time, first-year students entering the college with a GPA of 3.0 or higher and a combined SAT score of 1050 or higher.

“Cedar Crest is passionate about the ability of a small, private, liberal arts education to provide students with life-changing opportunities, but we know that many families, particularly middle-class families with more than one child in college, may think they just can’t afford it,” said Mary-Alice Ozechoski, vice president of enrollment and student affairs at Cedar Crest. “We want students who have put in the hard work to be academically successful during high school to have access to cutting-edge learning and co-curricular opportunities we offer, and this program can help close that gap.”

The program is an expansion and renaming of a previous Cedar Crest initiative that began in fall 2016. That initiative afforded Pennsylvania residents that met minimum requirements a tuition rate equal to the tuition rate across all of Penn State’s campuses.

As of 2018, 37 percent of the entering freshman class benefited form that initiative.

“The response to the PA-only program was substantial, so we knew this was a key issue for many families. We felt it was the right thing to offer something like this to all students interested in Cedar Crest, no matter what state they come from,” said Ozechoski.

Founded in 1867, Cedar Crest currently enrolls approximately 1,700 students—full-time, part-time and graduate, in more than 50 fields of study.

Dawn Ouellette Nixon is a career journalist who believes that good journalism can change the world. As the health care reporter, she covers everything from small town medicine to big pharma.
You can also find her chasing a good business story in Berks County. She can be reached at dnixon@lvb.com or 610-807-9619, extension 4118.